In 1979 I was training to become a Parachuting and Skydiving Instructor under the guidance of Claude Gillard. At the time Claude was president of the Australian Parachute Federation with already 20 years experence in the sport going back to it’s very beginning in Australia in 1959. Claude has seen the sport develop from an intentional form of aircraft bale out, to the development of the extreme activities with tandems, wing suits and high speed canopies that we have today.

Being involved in both the training, commercialisation, and administration of individual clubs and the development of the Australian Parachute Federation, Claude has seen parachuting from the very beginning as President of the APF for over 30 years.

Within all human activities there is are few rare people who see this activity from inception to maturity. Claude within parachuting and skydiving is one of these fortunate and rare individuals and within his experiences are the timeline of the development of Skydiving.

There are some specific people I know that I look forward to bringing to you on Your Story, Claude is up there as one of the most important to reflect on his life that I know.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you.

Sharing is Loving:

Thing I dig the most about people like Claude ‘n Ian are how they can take a keen maven’s interest in something so, well..so *unaccessible* to the average joe. It’s not every day a skydiver is born…and what Claude and Ian did here was to make the art and sport of skydiving/parachuting accessible to the masses.

Another great advantage — which, incidentally, I’ve increasingly noticed over the past several YSPs I’ve listened to — is how Ian “exposes the hidden” with these casts. He makes expert information available to the layman, getting me really interested in picking up a book about skydiving, for example, just to find out more about what it feels like for a man like Claude to leap out of a plane at 3,000 feet in the air, or what’s it’s really like to run a bookshop, despite the commonly-held allure about it.

BTW…does a book exist? Has Claude written anything or does he blog, out of curiosity?